A critical review of local and world news. This blog originally commented on the Moncton Times and Transcript but has enlarged its scope.

Friday, August 4, 2017

August 4: Don't Hit Me.

This is going to be a very difficult blog for me to write. I know some readers will be angry - mostly because they will read into it things I never said. It's not their fault. It's a natural way us humans think. Not our fault. Instead of understanding what we read, we tend to react to it - commonly without understanding what it was that was said.

So please bear with me.

On radio, I once had a great argument with a journalist who believed that Hitler was a socialist. His party was, after all, the National Socialist Party.

In fact, his major supporters were big business in Germany and the U.S. And Hitler hated socialism with a passion. Hitler's National Socialist party far more closely resembled Trump's followers in the U.S. In fact, it has resembled that of many world leaders before and since - and most of us people.

But our press never reported that, and it still doesn't. As is so common, we got fed with myths that shape our thinking to this day.

Here's an excellent site on what Hitler was about - and it is certainly a challenge to our attitudes.

https://www.thoughtco.com/who-supported-hitler-and-why-1221371
At the bottom of the page is a site about Assad of Syria. Again, this is very different image from the man in our newspapers.
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It's important to understand this. Why? It's because news media, propaganda, and the natural desire to see our own actions as good, and to see to see those of other nations as evil. But that image is seldom true.

Hitler invaded countries partly so that German big business could loot them, partly for their strategic value for even greater wars of conquest. We spoke then of 'brave little Britain" - which actually had done the same thing to 20% of the world, killing more people than Hitler did.

The British certainly never thought of themselves as a brutal and murderous people who engaged in slavery, in plundering resources, in forcing people to work for slave wages, in deliberately allowing huge populations to starve. This was done for centuries by many European countries. Even little Belgium joined in murder, plunder, torture, killing millions in Congo. And that's still going on - with Canadian companies, too, involved. We've seen t he same with the U.S. in South America, the Middle East, Africa - and now with the imposition of starvation on all men, women and children in Yemen.

Why do we do this? Because big business wants the power to loot and exploit those countries. These are all the same things that Naziism stood for. Funny how our Christian churches haven't noticed that. Of course, the Naziis killed freely, too.

But we are good. And they were bad.

We deplored the genocide of Jews?

Come off it. From 1900 to well after the war, most Canadians detested and discriminated against Jews. We did nothing whatever to help them though we knew what was happening. We wouldn't even help those who escaped. In fact, Canada has a horrible record of racism. It has heavily discriminated against Jews, Chinese, Indians (from India), African-Canadians and our first nations. We did not go to war to help the Jews. In fact, Canada and the U.S. waffled between hatred and contempt for Jews. That's why, to this day, Israel distrusts us, and has taken such an aggressive stance in the middle east.

After the war, automotive giant Henry Ford got the Medal of Honour for his contribution to the war against Hitler. Very nice. But we all forget that, before the war, he got ...

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/henry-ford-grand-cross-1938/

And so we forget that Ford had been a major supporter of Hitler. And he wasn't the only one. Many business leaders in Canada and the U.S. rushed to support Naziism. They still do. That's why, when the U.S. overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, it placed a substantial number of Naziis in the new government. (There are lots of photos, never seen on our TVs, of some regiments in the Ukrainian army that have large swastikas on their helmets.

And when the world war 2 ended, we righteously held courts that tried and hanged the obvious villains. But our news media didn't notice those who were NOT tried, including the big businessmen in Germany - and the big businessmen in Germany and many countries, including the U.S., who helped Hitler to gain and hold power, commit war crimes, and who even supplied the German army.

Hitler's National Socialist Party was not socialist at all. it was a product of capitalism.

And so the world continued after the war.

Oh, we're different because we have democracy? Um, not really.

The people who own our news media feed us propaganda and ignorance. Nations in which the people have no idea what is going on cannot possibly be democracies. The vote means nothing, especially when so many of the major parties are controlled by big business.

And the U.S., which preaches democracy, has been happily destroying democracies all over the world and setting iup dictatorships all over the world.
Hitler was nothing new for the world. Many, many rulers have been just like him. Take Trump. The friend of big business who wants to get rid of regulations that control them, wants to get rid of taxes for them, that happily invades countries to meet the wishes of big business. Like Hitler, he plays to a racism - this time Muslims and Mexicans - that is already there. And it's not just Trump. He's the product of years of Naziism, not the cause of it.

The reality is we live in a state remarkably similar to that of Hitler.

Yes, yes, I know. This is an insult to our veterans. (and if you believe that, it's the old human problem of reacting rather than thinking.) I knew many of the veterans, including my father. There was nothing Nazi about them. They believed (because that's what we told them) they were fighting for a better world And we betrayed them. It's certainly not they who are at fault. It's us.

The Canadian Legion, alas, always jumps into these issues on the side of those who really run this country. And when it does that, it lets our veterans down.
Did they fight so we could send troops to Afghanistan? It was an illegal war. And, if it was worth the lives of those who died, why did we quit in the middle of it? And why do we illegally have troops in Iraq? And why did we illegally bomb Libya? This is not at all the world we said we were fighting for in the 1940s.

And why haven't our news media asked those questions? And why do we restrict our remberance of those who served to one day a year? Why don't we really think of what they died for? And what we should now do in their honour?
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This is no climate change. We know that because if there were the irving press would tell us.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/04/melting-glaciers-swiss-alps-could-reveal-hundreds-mummified-corpses
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Nest is a modest statement of what's going on in the world. And, yes, Canadian companies have been involved. We still have lots of Hitlers in this world.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/13/environmental-defenders-being-killed-in-record-numbers-globally-new-research-reveals
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The tale of murder involves Guatemala where New Brunswick's Raoul Leger was murdered. The Canadian company involved is Tahoe Resources. Think of that the next time you're listening to the "special music" at the Irving Chapel next Sunday. Leger's grave is just down the street.

Go to google. Type Tahoe Resources board. See the nice, smiling board members. And be sure to check the section called 'social responsibility' with all its pictures of smiling workers. It makes me proud to be a Canadian.
Recently, a BC court agreed to hear a complaint against the Guatemala mine for human rights violations. Funny how it never made the irving press.
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Black Lives Matter is aimed abuse of Blacks in the U.S. (Canada could use a version of it.) It can be difficult to find the articles you want. But it's the only good source of its type that I know.
http://blacklivesmatter.com/we-dont-want-ice-cream-bbqs-or-hugs-we-want-to-live/
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The language in this next piece is a bit loaded, but the general message is quite right. The sanctions against Russia are extremely unwise. Europe is getting very worried about the seeming lust of the American government for war with Russia. Watch for Europe (but not Britain) to work its way out of the American embrace.
For Britain, alas, the glory days of empire are gone. It now has to kiss up to the U.S. to survive - which must be particularly galling to many British who know that the U.S. took a major role in destroying the empire.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47561.htm
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I would take the article below on Venezuela with a grain of salt - but also with some respect. I can't pretend to have full understanding of what is going on in that country. According to our news media, the government of Venezuela is bad, bad, bad. Maybe it is. But remember that that U.S. has been interfering in Venezuela in the way it has always interfered with South American governments that want to serve their people. It has routinely murdered, invaded - and the North American press has been obedient.

Certainly, the idea that the U.S. would intervene for the sake of the people of Venezuela is absurd. For over a century, it has murdered, starved, and plundered nations all over South America. And it has routinely set up dictatorships. And very murderous ones.

I really have no clear idea of what is happening. But this item is here the 'other side we are not hearing about."

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/47551.htm
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This is a left-wing site. I confess to preferring left-wing sites to right-wing ones. For a start, the right is solidly in power across Canada and the U.S. All of our commercial news media are right wing. So left-wing sites are the only ones we have to offer criticism.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/washington_one_party_state
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The following report is a warning about Alberta oil pipeline spills that have happened, and which will contiue to happen for firty years of the news pipelines' life. But not to worry. If we go on using oil that long, there will probably be no life to worry about.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/08/04/new-report-reveals-water-threats-posed-dirty-threes-pipeline-routes
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The Christian churches, particularly those that attack abortion, have been pretty silent on what's going on in the world - as silent as German churches were on the rule of Hitler. Luckily, Pope Francis has been a breath of fresh air.

How is it possible that Christian societies can be so greedy and murderous? And how come so few of the clergy have noticed it?
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The following story should be food for thought for Canadians. Have you noticed how our own politicians (and news media) have been friendly to the wishes of the energy industry?

https://theintercept.com/2017/08/03/epa-staffers-are-being-forced-to-prioritize-energy-industrys-wish-list-says-official-who-resigned-in-protest/
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Here's one that's friendly to Trump. And I would agree that Trump was on the right track in seeking to be more cooperative with Russia and China. But I don't think big business is interested in cooperation.

So now we are measurably closer to the war that nobody can win.

http://www.voltairenet.org/article197288.html
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The source of this one is a Russian leader. That doesn't mean he's automatically wrong.

http://thesaker.is/dmitri-medvedevs-facebook-post-on-trump-and-us-sanctions-full-text/
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The very wealthy are in full control of most of the world. The danger of war comes because they - all over the world - are the ones who see conquest as being good. The world has to re-establish control of its own governments.

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About Me

born into poverty in Montreal. (1933 was a bad year to be born.) Kicked out of school in grade 11. Became factory hand, office boy.
Did a general BA, mostly at night at Sir George Williams University, and partly while a youth worker for YMCA, camps, etc. Then teacher training at McGill.
Taught gradea 7 to 11 for six years. Loved it.
Quit to do MA at Acadia, then PhD (History) at Queen's.
Taught history three years at UPEI, then some 35 years at Concordia U in Montreal.
Loved the teaching. Thought the profs had more pompous and useless asses among then than is really desirable outside a zoo.
work experience:
factory, office,social group work, office,camp director, teacher.
Radio - c. 3000 broadcasts, mostly current events.
TV - many hundred appearances, mostly commentaries.
Film - some writing, advising, voice-overs.
Writing - no count, some hundreds. Some academic, but mostly for popular market, and ranging from short stories to stories to newspaper and magazine columns to history books.
professional speaker - close to 2000.
Awards for the above? yep